Spring-wheel.



J. SANDERS.

SPRlNG WHEEL.

APPLICATION FILED MAR.6,1912.

Patented Oct. 5, 1915.

MSHEETSSHEET 1.

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v Allorney coLuMmA r'LANoGRAPn C0..WASH|NGTON. D. c.

SANDERS.

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Patented Oct. 5, 1915.

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iiiii'rnn s' arns r arian e asion.

JOSEPH sAnnnns, OF WASHINGTON, DISTRICT or COLUMBIA.

sPRI -Wi nnn Applicatio ifiled March 6, 1912. seriaiiio. 681,883.

tended to provide a resilient or spring eiiect in the manner of pneumatic tires such as commonly employed on the wheels of motor vehicles. T i y To this end the invention contemplates certain novel and practical improvements in spring Wheels which secure theoretically correct provision for receivingand absorbing all shocks and stresses communicated in any and all directions to the tire of thewheel' While rolling or beingfdriven over a surface. Inthis connection, the invention has especially in iew a thoroughly pract cal means for utilizing the supporting and resilieiit properties of springs in such a manneias to provide L'WhBGl' for driving or driven purposes which shall have a peripheral resilience, equivalent, for all substantial purposes, to that possessed by' the, Well known pneumatic tire.

lVithout the disadvantages of the pneumatic tire: the present invention provides a spring Wheel havinga maximum resiliency and life, and embodying spring ele'i'nentsarranged in sucha, manner as to secure uniform yielding thereof. Also, the mounting and ar-.

i-nngement of the spring elements are so designed as to provide a Wide range of sensitiveness, so asto respond to light and heavy shocks, and this feature also involves the floating of the movable rim member in siich a manner that there is a responsive yield to the corresponding spring elements in ac tion, when a shock or stress is imposed upon any one of the said elements 9 A further object of the inventionjis to provide an arrangement and mounting of the spring elements that not only secur'esa uniform distribution of the lo'ad, shocks, and stresses throughouhbut also provides a construction that, effectively takes career the torque.

another object of the invention is to pro- Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Got. 5 1915.

wide a spring Wheel of large reserve C217 7 pacity, that is to say, having the spring ele ments in such form and arrangement as to take care of any predetermined load and traction Without exceeding the elastic "limit of thespring supporting elements, and in addition to that, to provide means whereby supplemental spring supporting elements, norniallyin reserve, automatically come into play as a supporting medium before the elastic limit of preceding spring elements or units are reached, thereby providing What may be termed a, graduated spring support which takes careof shocks andstrains that are excessive for. the main supportingelemerits; i i

A still further object of the invention is to provide a simple and separable construction I that admits of ready assembling, and ready taking'apart of the Wheel for purposes .of

repair andadiustment.

. With these and many other objects in view, which will morelreadilyfl appear as the nature of the invention is better understood, the same consists in the novel construction, combination andarrangement ofparts, hereinafter more fully described, illustrated and claimed.

l hilethe invention is necessarily susceptible to embodiment in different kinds of wheels, and is also capable or various structural modifications, Without departing from the sp rit or. scope thereof, certain practical embodiments are shown in the accompany ing "drawings, in which? rigure 1 man elevation of a portion 01.

a spring \vheel embodying the present invention, parts shown insection. Fig. 2

is an enlarged circumferential sectional view of a pertionof the yielding rim structure. Fig. 3 1s a cross sectional view on the line of Fig. 2. Fig. l is a similar view on the line of Fig. 2. Fig. 5 is an enlarged detail sectional view further illustrating the reserve spring supports that successively come in'toaction. Fig. 61s a- ,detail sectional I I'IQWOII the line 6- 3 of Fig; 1 illustrating the employment of the auxiliary rubber buffers for the bearings. diagranii'natic view of one of the Wire-bundleunits, showing by dotted and full lines the"normahstraight condition of the bunch,

andv the Working flexed condition or the Fig. '7 is a detail 45 diameter of about .04lO.

bunch, thelatter illustration indicating the feature of the individual strands being unconnectedand having free ends, which perinits the sliding-over and upon one another,

thus preserving theLfull resiliency and action of'cach strand. Fig. 8 is a detail View showing a modification that may be resorted to in. the means for seating the free ends of the wire-bundle units, thus decreasing wear, making a lighter structure, and cheapening and facilitating manufacture.

Like references designate corresponding parts in the several figures of the drawings.

1 limit of the metal.

spring wires, and wires of sulficient strength to take care of not only predetermined loads and traction, but also of abnormal loads and strains imposed at various angles and in various directiona Furthermore, in order that;

the life of the spring be ofreasonable duration the defiectionmust not be so great'as to,

give a fiber stressgreater than. the elastic Tests which have been made by me show that'the tire member must have an'elastic motion of notless than one quarter of an inch To obtain such deflection! with a spring, the length of which does not exceed that permissible for'the wheels and tires in ordinary use, and still keep the fiber stress within the. elastic limit, requires a very thin wire even when the best metal is used.

A tire of four inches in width would have an effective spring length of not over three and three-quarters inches. A spring of this length supported atits center and having its ends deflect one-quarter of an inch,

would,"in order not to exceed a fiber stress of 150,000'pounds for a square inch, have a spring of .040 of an inch diameter and three and three-quarters of an inch would. have a carryingcapacity of less than one pound for a maximum deflection of one quarter of. an inch. It is therefore, evident that, with a wheel load of-only 5l00 pounds representing in a four wheeled vehicle a total weight and load of only 2,000 pounds, it would take 500 of i such I springs and at that would, standing still, deflect thenito their full elastic limit. Added to this, with the stress due to shocks and'power iii driving. it will be evident Y that several thousand of such springsmust be used. V

The impossibility of commercial manufac turing will be understood at once when it is considered that for one wheel of 2,000 springs, it vvou1d require, 6,000 holes r of A round wire;

0&0 of an inch diameter tobe drilled,and

- 2,000 clamping devices to hold them in place and the assembling and locating the springs intheir proper holes would be next to impossible. 'As far asis present known to me, the prior art does not disclose a practical way of overcoming these difficulties above mentioned-to render practicable the use of springrsupporting elements within and about the wheel to give to it a resil ency equivalent to or approaching that of a pneuf niatic tire. I

Accordingly, in carrying outthe present invention I propose inpractice to employ relatively very thin wire strands of spring steel. The lack of supporting strength in these strands is compensated for by the use of large number thereof- 5 One of the wheelswhich I have made and successfully tested on an automobile of about 1,300 pounds in; weight,lliaving apprniinately eighteen hundred of said strands. However,

the use of this large number of thin wires is made entirely practicable and possible by bunching the same into bundles with the individual wire strands unconnected and their ends free- This conserves the full re siliency and action of each strand in the bundle, while the combinedstrands of each bundle aggregately produce a spring unit of relatively great supporting strength, as well as resiliency.

In the embodiment illustrated in the drawing, there is shown an ordinary wheel having the invention applied thereto as an attachment. Referring to this llustration, the wheel body includes the usual hub l.

spokesfl, and felly 3. At the outer. end of;

the spokes or-upon the jelly 3, therejis arranged an inner fixed rim member 4:, preferably in the form of a band of T-shape in cross section and whose circumferential rib 5 is pierced by a series of holding openings Gwhich receive the central portions, by a driving fit or otherwise, ott the wire-bundle units 7. The. opposite free ends of these units are received in the flared or equivalent bearing sockets 8, which are provided in the opposite parallel supporting cheek plates 9. These cheek plates lie against the opposite side edges of the inner rim member 4t and combine therewith to give lateral rigidity and strength to the structure, while the said rim member 4: also resists lateral thrust.

The side cheek plates 9 are carried by and are movable with an outer movable rim member 10 which is yieldingly supported by and from thespring supporting units 7. Various means may be employed for detachably securing the cheek plates to theouter rim member 10, as for instance by providing said rim member at its opposite inner edges with rabbeted seats 11 and 12, in one of which. is, seated the outer edge of or e -heel:

plate 9, and in the other of which seat 12 is seated the head13 oftie bolts 14:, extending through unthreaded openings 15' in one.

check plate, and having threaded tips 16 engaged in threaded openings 17in the other cheek plate 9 preferably riveted to prevent loosening from vibration. This structure is provided for the ready and easy assembling and disassembling of all parts of the invention wheneverrequired or necessary.

,The outer rim member 10 may be of a channeled. formation to receive therein a solid rubber or equivalent tire tread 18, which may be of various forms, either solid as suggested in-Fig. 1 or of the double ribbed and transversely grooved type illustrated in Figs. 2, 3 and l, though it willbe understood that. any form of tire tread construction will be available for this purpose.

Fromthe foregoing description it will be understood that the outer rim member is normally supported by any predetermined number of the wire-bundle units 7 which are made up, by bunching, of a large number of thin spring steel wires, the individual strands of each unit being unconnected, and having free ends which thus permits, as shown in Fig. 7, them to slide over and upon one anothenwhereby the full resiliency and action of each strand is preservedwhile in the aggregate they provide for a relatively great supportingstre'ngth. The flare of the sockets 8 is intended to permit of this play and "self-adjustment of the free ends of the wire strands of each unit and for easy assembling, and in this connection itwill be noted, that a practical modification that may be resorted to is suggested in Fig. 8, and con sists in using cheek plates 9 of. compara-, tively thin metal that can be punched with holes19 to receive therein, by a driving fit or otherwise, the closed end portions 20 of flaring steel bushings 21 which constitute the bearing sockets for the ends of the units.

This construction makes assembling easy and also permits the use of hardened steel for the bearings of the ;hard steel wires.

Also the use of thinner metal is permitted for the cheek plates or rings, and the cheaper process of punching, instead'of drilling, the

holes may be resorted to.

For that embodiment of the invention which provides. for reserve spring supports, this may be carried out by having certain spring supports always and normally in use as the main supporting elements for the tire, and other spring supporting elements normally in reserve. I I While the normal and reservespring supporting elements may beall of the same kind, as plainly shown by the graduated bearing sockets in Fig. 1 of the drawings, yet it may be desirable to provide an arrangement as shown 1n,F1g.-5, wherein each. Wire-bundle Hint/:7 1s succeeded by a series of graduated spring-reserve units 7 the walls of their bearing sockets 8,". in the tion illustrated in Fig. ;5,the said reserve units may consist of spring wires of pros gressively increasing diameter, and vhence of progressively increasing supporting strength. The effect of this construction has already been indicated, viz., the saidreserve spring units only come into play under eX- treme conditions, and then only inprogressive orderbefore the elastic limit of preced ing spring units hasbeen reached, and not bending so far, themselves-,-they keep within theirelastic limits. In connection with the bearing sockets 8, for the ends of the reserve springs, units may be bushed with auxiliary rubber buffers 22 having steel or equivalent wear linings. 23, said bufierssupplementing theresiliency of the spring unit. See Figs. 1, 5 and e.

From the foregoing, it will be observed that the reserve springs are preferablyarranged in a plurality of circumferentialsets, each set consisting of the circumferential series of reserve springsof the'same character and strength; By reason of this construe tion and arrangement, the reserve spring unitsof each set ofsuch units are normally out/of action',,andare so disposed that all of the said units receive the load in unison, or in other words. come into play at the same time. This is true of each circumferential set. of. reserve springs, regardless of whether one or more sets thereof are brought into,

play under-abnormal loads imposed upon the wheel.- j

. A feature of practical importance in carrying out the invention resides in the dual function of the tie bolts 14. It will be observed from the drawingsthat these bolts lie in the radial plane of clearance notches 1r formed at intervals in the edge of the peripheral" rib 5 of theinner fixed rim'member 4:. Each of these clearance notches present bottom abutments a and stop shoulders I). In this connection, it is to be understood that the notches l4: not only provide clearance for the tie bolts, but also present stops or abutments that check and arrest abnormal torsional strain, as well as shocks and strains in radial directions. -U-nder excessive loads the tie bolts 14 come into solid-engagement with the abutments a at the bottom of the clearance notches, while torsional strain due to sudden starting or to other strains or shocks is checked or arrested by the engagement of the bolts 14:with the shoulders I), thus protecting and safe-guarding the whole structure, and materially contributing to its dura bili'ty and service. I a I I 65 7 and 7., the free ends of which units are normally out of contact with and freefrom ter support.

From the construction-described, it will be observed that the provision of a large circumferencerelative to the Weight carried givesdurablebearings and-also prevents the turning of the: vvire'bundleunits in the'cen- Furthermore it is observed in case of defects in and the breaking of one or more of the individual Wire strands, that no appreciable loss or damage is sustainedon accountof the very large number of Wires embodied in the structure, being very thin they Will not damage or interfere With Working. At the same time the ready accessibility of everypart of the structure admits of cheap and easy repairs.

Another feature of .utility'in'the practical operation of the invention ;is that of the bundles acting as a sponge or holder for the lubricant.

I claim: a s

1. A spring Wheel construction including fixed and movable members, a constantly active normal spring support for the movable member, "and a supplemental circumferential set of reserve spring unitsnormally outof action and so disposed that all of the said units act in synchronism to simultaneously receive the load. 2. A spring Wheel construction including fixed and movable members, a constantly active normal spring support for the movable member, and a plurality of supplemen' an circumferential sets of reserve spring units, all of Which sets are'normally out of action, and the units of each set being so disposed as to act in synchronism'to simultaneously receive the load.

'3. A spring Wheel construction including fixed and movable members, a constantly active normal spring support for'the movable member, and a plurality of supplemental circumferential sets of reserve spring units, all ofWh1ch sets are normally out of action, and the units of each set being so disposed as to act in synchronism to simul tan'eously receive'the' load, the said'several sets of reserve spring un1ts being-graduated in strength and progressively coming into play according to the load. o

l. A spring Wheel construction including fixed and movable members, one of which has bearings, a constantly active normal springsupport for the movable member, and a supplemental circumferential set-of reserve sprlngs carried byone member and normally out of contact With said bearings, and all of said springs in said set acting in synchronismso as to come into contact'at the same time with their hearings on a predetermined load;

5; A spring heel having fixed and mov" able members, a series of Wire-bundle units normally supporting one of said member's vfrom the other, and otheirese'rve spring openings therein, a series of. Wire-bundle units held in the center of said opening, a movable rim member having rabbetedseats at its edges, side cheek plates having bearing sockets for receiving the endportions of said units, and one of said cheek plates engaging in one of said rabbeted seats, and bolts detachably' connecting the tWo cheek plates and having heads engaging in the other of said seats."

8. A spring Wheel having a fixed member, a movable member having'sockets provided itlrrubber bufiers, and a supporting element carried by the fixed member and en gaging in said sockets, but normally out'of contact With said bufiers. i

9. A spring Wheel having a fixed member, amovable member having sockets provided With rubber bushings, and supporting spring-units carried by the fixed member and having their ends'engaged in the sockets of the movable member.

10. Ina spring Wheel, aninner and'an outer rim, one of said rims having a plurality of openings Which are formed-in sets of different radial dimensions, and a plurality of spring members between the rims and each having a free end movable through an opening in the rim. 7 v

In a spring Wheel, an inner' and an outer rim, one of said rims having an annular lug member provided with a plurality of openings, and spring members between the rims, and each having free ends movable through an opening in the lug membersaid openings being formed in sets of different radial dimensions.

'12.-In a spring Wheeh'an inner'and an outer rim, one of said'rims having an annular lug member provided with a plurality of openings, and spring members between the rims and each having free ends movable through an opening in the lugmember, said openings being formed in sets, the Walls of one set of Which are engaged at all times by the free ends of their respective spring members and the alls of another set of which are brought into engagement with their respective spring members after'a predetermined loadjis'reached.

I 13. In a spring Wheel,'an inner and an outer rim,'one of said rims having an annul-ar rug member provided with a plurality of openings, and spring members between their respective spring members as predeterthe rims, and eaeh having free ends movable mined loads are reached. 10 through an opening in the lug member, said In testimony whereof I hereunto afiix my openings being formed in sets, the Walls of signature in the presence of two Witnesses. one set of which are engaged at all times by JOSEPH SANDERS.

the free ends of their respective spring mem- Witnesses:

bers and the walls of additional sets of MARY K. KooGLn,

which are brought into engagement With EMORY L. GEOFF.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents. Washington, D. G. 

